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Newt Gingrich: Fire Steven Chu over gas price remarks

Gingrich responded to Chu’s appearance before a House subcommittee. | AP Photo

“No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy,” Chu told Nunnelee. He added that reduced oil dependence and a diversified energy supply will “help the American economy and the American consumers.”

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“Yesterday [Obama’s] secretary of anti-energy Dr. Chu literally testified in Congress that he did not favor lowering the price of gasoline, that they had no alternative policy to lower the price of gasoline and that his goal was to get us on to other things,” Gingrich said.

“Dr. Chu is apparently a brilliant scientist,” the Republican presidential hopeful said. “I'm for allowing him to go back to science as rapidly as possible. In fact I suspect the American people would chip in to buy the airplane ticket later on today.”

Meanwhile, in comments to reporters Thursday, Chu expanded on his earlier thoughts.

"One of the major themes, again, as I talked about the previous hearing two days ago, was that the administration, the Department of Energy, the president [are] very, very concerned about the rising gasoline prices and will do everything it can to help reduce those prices,” Chu said. But he cautioned, “As the president has said time and time again, there are no single magic bullets.”

Chu also passed up another opportunity to directly answer what he meant in his 2008 comments about higher fuel prices.

"I would say again and again, every action, every step I have taken as secretary of energy is to decrease the price of gasoline,” he said.

“If you diversify the supply so the transportation sector can go to natural gas, can go to electro-fuels, can go to biofuels without subsidy, that would be as good as petroleum,” Chu said. “These are things that actually moderate prices and give businesses and consumers a choice. I liken it to beef and the price of beef goes up, you’re a victim to the price of beef. If you can go to beef to chicken to pork to pasta, you have many more choices."

Ginger Gibson contributed to this report.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 1:42 p.m. on March 1, 2012.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story was based on a previous POLITICO article that mischaracterized remarks by Energy Secretary Steven Chu. That article, which has since been corrected, can be found here.

Readers' Comments (131)

Apparently someone sat down Sec Chu after his testimony yesterday and told him in no uncertain terms to stop telling the truth. After all, President Obama has an election to win and a public to bamboozle.

He has now changed his tune and is parroting the Obama administration line......they really don't want higher gas prices....wink wink.

Why on earth would Obama fire Chu? Who else could he get to stay on board with his energy policy? Chu told the truth - Obama DOES want high oil prices. This despite the fact that domestic oil means jobs, a growing economy, and lower cost of living. Especially after the exposure a couple months ago of Obama's domestic oil exports in the past three years (found at CNN Money) at a time that our domestic gas prices are so high, one must wonder what Obama's really going for. If he cared about the economy or jobs, he'd lift the oil-drilling moratorium, accept Keystone, and allow domestic oil to be used domestically. Prices would plummet, we would have spending money! If on the other hand, this is about the environment as he'd like you to believe, why do you believe we're saving the environment when we're instead buying oil from distant, hostile, human-rights violating countries with less stringent environmental standards then our own? That doesn't fly. It must be the ensuing economic hardship driving citizens of the United States to turn to their government instead of relying on themselves. In other words, he's laying the building blocks of socialism despite the failure of socialism everywhere in the world where it has been implemented. Do you really want to follow in the footsteps of the EU?

If this is news, consider your sources. You've got to read both sides because both sides leave stuff out.

Funny, I would think that a "Pro-America" energy policy would be one that reduces our dependency on a nonrenewable resource that we do not have enough of to meet U.S. demand. Even if we tapped all the oil fields in Alaska and North Dakota and Texas, we still can't produce enough.

Apparently Gingrich would prefer to keep shoveling money to the part of the world that hates us (albeit less money).

This is one campaign promise Obama has kept. Higher gas prices. Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle that under his administration, gas prices would 'necessarily skyrocket.' On January 20th, 2009 the national average for a gallon of gas was 1.84, now it will surely be above 5.00 by the summer. almost tripling gas prices. Mission accomplished. Now companies that Obama invested billions in like Solyndra, Ener1 will thrive... oh wait. Nevermind.

For Chu and Obama to be very cavalier in cheering and creating policy for home electicity rates and gas prices skyrocket on thier hopes their green enegery schemes will slightly improve, shows how heartless they are to middle and lower class Americans who will bear the brunt of these dastardly deeds, at the gas pumps and in heating their homes for winter.

We have Chu who wasted billion of dollars in taxpayer money in Solyndra, Ener1 and we're also hearing about ProLogis being given Stimulus money in order to buy products from Solyndra. Yet he still has a job with the Obama admin. Then there is Holder who under his watch used taxpayer money to arm Mexican drug cartels that ended costing the lives of Mexicans and Americans alike. Yet Obama has no problem with them. So basically Obama endorses all these policies.

If Republicans really think the price of Gas is too high now, with only the THREAT of an embargo on Iranian Oil by Europe, what do they think is going to happen to the price of oil when they win the Presidency and start bombing them?

You want energy independence? You can't worry about the price of Gas.

You want cheap gas, then you buy oil from whoever has it, which would include Iran and Syria.

But guess what? Eventually, oil runs out. And if we are not prepared for that, then $4+ a gallon is the least of our worries.

We have (supposedly) 100+ YEARS of Natural Gas that we (apparently) are not going to stop Fracking for, but instead of investing in the infrastructure to turn that into Methanol (the liquid form that can power cars) and have gas stations be able to pump it (and it's about 1/3rd the price of gas), the Republicans are continuing to scream bloody murder to drill for more oil.

Why? The natural gas is owned and stripped from the earth by the same company that sells the gasoline. So whose pockets are taking the hit that Republicans refuse to go away from "Oil! Oil! Oil!"? That's the real question that needs to be answered.

And Chu is telling the truth in both his statements (testimony and after testimony). He is trying to get the US to be Energy Independent. Will that result in lower gasoline prices? Yes. Will it result in lower gasoline prices today? No. Not until there is a REAL alternative to gasoline in vehicles that we drive.

And don't forget, gasoline for cars is NOT the be-all, end-all of energy. So an overall goal of low gas prices means you aren't worying about heating oil, electricity and all the other energy issues that the US has (not the least of which is the increasing demand on the dwindling supply).

The fact of the matter is that the federal government has very little control over the price of oil. It's a globally traded commodity who's price can change drastically based on simple speculation regardless of the realities of the actual supply and demand.

No amount of new pipelines, or new drilling permits, or releasing of stategic reserves will change the price of oil in the short or the long term enough to make any significant impact. And any politician who tells you otherwise has either not actually done the math on it or is blowing smoke up your butt.

Gingrich is right again. The guy should be fired. Anybody that believes high gas prices will help reduce our dependance on foriegn oil is smoking something illegal. It only hurts the economy. The same amount of gas will be consumed and less important necessities will be foregone to make up for it. And, we will see more loan defaults.

What does Obama want from us? To start riding bicycles to work?

We consume so much oil and there is so much untapped oil reserves in this country. If we wanted to really get to the core of it, we could literally set the price of oil ourselves and the rest of the world would sell it to us at the rate we demand. Yes indeed.

"The mission of the Energy Department is to ensure America’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions."

No, I don't want Chu fired, I want him testifying before Congress every day in October of this year. This is the Obama and Democrat plan to help all the poor in this country. Raise energy prices so the Democrats running "green energy" companies can make billions of dollars.